She opened her mouth twice to speak, then closed it again, her sea glass green eyes wide, and surprised. He cupped her cheek, “You don’t have to say anything back, and I do not expect forgiveness. But I am truly sorry.” Maura couldn’t speak, it seemed, because she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him instead. James enclosed her in his as well, kissing the top of her head and they stood in silence, rocking slightly.
Walking out into the furnace blast of heat and light from the desert was jarring. But the feeling of holding her hand - a gesture of tenderness in front of his men - was deeply satisfying. They separated at the blast site, James kissing a blushing Maura. O'Connell laughed boisterously, jeering at her flushed cheeks. "TEENAGER," he chuckled, pulling at her ponytail. They spent the rest of the morning finishing the openings to the two dig sites to pull the REE samples.
O'Connell was patient, showing her the difference in results from plastique vs. dynamite, how nitroglycerin could be altered to change the direction of the blast, the myriad detonation sequences, and how to wire them. "IT'S A PITY YOU'VE GOT THAT BIG GODDAMN BRAIN OF YOURS, BELFAST," he lamented, "YOU'D MAKE A BRILLIANT EXPLOSIVES EXPERT. BUT THIS LINE OF WORK IS GUARANTEED TO JAR THOSE BRAIN CELLS CLEAR OUT OF YOUR HEAD."
Maura started laughing, "Don't worry, you exist as a walking, talking cautionary tale."
"MEAN SPIRITED MONKEY! GO FIND JAMES BEFORE I TIE A STICK OF DYNAMITE ON YOU." O'Connell chuckled as he sent her on her way.
Maura eventually found him in the electronics tent, where Nicholas was struggling to use the satellite uplink to get some work done. He printed off something and handed it to James, briefly looking at her before ducking his head.
Walking back to their tent, James handed Maura a folder. "What is it?" she asked, opening it. Stopping, she pulled out six large photos, date-stamped over the last three days they'd been in the desert. "Why are-" she sighed. Were they back to square one? "You know I won't run, why-?"
"That's not how these are intended," James said slowly. “Not as a threat. I thought you would... like to have them."
Looking down at them and then back up to him, Maura smiled uncertainty, "That's... that's so kind. Thank you, James. Truly." Two were of the twins visiting Meghan at the care center, one showing Carin playfully squeezing into the wheelchair with her and making Meghan smile. Another showed Abigail walking home with a boy, an awkward space between the two. "No!" Maura moaned, "No boys! She's too young!"
James laughed, taking her arm and starting the walk again. "She's sixteen, darling. Didn't you like boys by then?"
"I didn't have time," Maura answered distractedly, "oh! Meghan is smiling again? That's two pictures!"
His tone was gentle as they entered the tent. "Did she never smile before?"
"We- the doctors thought her brain damage was too great to respond to outside stimulus," she admitted.
James leaned over and kissed her hand not holding the precious photos. "Then she's proved that she's capable of progress?"
Maura looked up to him, eyes shining with unshed tears. "Thank you, James."
He looked somber for a moment. "It's been equally rare to find a smile on your face, I'm pleased to see it now."
Never in her life, had Maura been aggressive when it came to sex. But in this moment, coupled with his apology from earlier? She put the photos on a bench and literally climbed James like a tree, wrapping one leg and then the other around him to inch higher.
The deeply pleased laugh from her husband as she was scaling him, told Maura it was a good idea. Falling back onto the bed, James flipped up her skirt and began placing kisses along her delicate undies, pulling at them until he finally lost patience and ripped them free.
Ignoring Maura's startled yelp, James put his strong hands on her waist and easily hoisted her over his face, her center hovering over his sinfully grinning mouth. "Watch now, darling," he purred, putting his mouth over her in an open-mouthed kiss, sucking one lip, biting the other. When his lips closed over her tender clitoris and pulled, she let out a shriek and jolted sideways off the bed, her legs flying over her in an ignominious heap.
Laughing in the most wicked fashion, James rolled off the bed and pounced on her, pulling off the rest of her clothes. "You don't get away from me that easily, little girl..." he threatened, licking a line up her fluttering pulse in her neck.
"Growled like the true scoundrel you are," Maura challenged with a grin. James merely raised an eyebrow, then neatly rolled her over to straddle his narrow waist.
"Scoundrel?" he hummed devilishly. "Well, I did intend to be a gentleman, but as you wish..." he lifted Maura by her hips and over his painfully erect cock, letting her slide down it at her own pace. Feeling the burning stretch of his thickness made her moan shamelessly, moving faster than was comfortable in her hurry to have all of him inside her. A sudden bounce from below made her eyes fly open, Maura looked down at his carnal grin. "Look at me, darling. I want to watch you use me."
She paused in her downward slide on his cock to stare at him. James stroked his hands up and down her waist and hips, running his restless fingers on where they were joined. "Go on," he urged. "Take your orgasm from me. I want to watch you come undone at your pace."
Maura didn't know what to think. James had always claimed her orgasms as his, demanded them from her as his property. But feeling his big, warm palms smooth up and down her sides, she bit her lower lip and started to move again, ignoring the searing part of his thickness within her.
"I'm in you. To the hilt." James encouraged, his eyes glinting with a pagan enjoyment. She rolled her hips in a circle, then back and forth, enjoying the feel of him. Sliding up and down, Maura gasped as she felt his long fingers move between them, teasingly stroking her. Experimenting with edging down and pushing her hips forward, she gasped, putting her hand to her lower stomach and feeling the tremor.
James chuckled; the sound was pure sin. "Why darling, you didn't forget our lesson so soon, did you?" He put his large hand over hers and pushed in gently, grinning at her gasp. "Can you feel my cock pressing against the front of you, our hands pressing against it from the outside?" His other hand moved her hips back and forth again, feeling her shudder as he pressed harder. "What do we call this, sweetheart?"
Her head was lolling backward, mouth open as Maura felt the insanely erotic press of his cock inside her and rubbing against that wildly sensitive place- the one she was certain was always a myth before sex with the man under her. "The uh... um... AH!" James had braced his feet and thrust up sharply, driving his shaft deeper into her. Her back arched from the movement, and that only pressed his cock harder against the front of her walls.
"What is it?" He prompted in a filthy, silky tone.
"The..." Maura moaned pitifully, "it's the thing that..."
James thrust up again, still keeping his hand pressed against her pelvis. "Now darling, don't you remember at the hotel? When I showed you with my fingers and my cock where your sweet place was? How you came in a flood, all over my hand, your thighs, the chair?"
